The People Next Door

Chico Garcia recently got himself new neighbors who were noisy and happened to be Koreans (or were they Koreans who happened to be noisy, I forget). I dared to comment on his post basically to say there wasn't any point mentioning that they were Koreans since (a) noise-making wasn't exclusive to any race (case in point: his previous neighbors were also noisy but Pinoy), and secondly, certain traits combined with certain nationalities in the same sentence tend to set off xenophobic rants especially around these parts.

Before I could say quod erat demonstrandum, other comments started pouring in blasting away at the alien enemy.

For some, the enemy was me. I was referred to as vitamin-deficient, korean, an indio, defender of foreigners, Delamar, anal, Chico's ex, and the worst of the lot, panyero.

Nobody to blame but me though, as a commenter named "weeh" said so matter-of-factly in this gem: "besides, he’s the one who made such a huge fuss about ethnicity first, which is a sensitive issue in a country that has yet to come to terms with the fairly recent influx of koreans."

Yep, when you open your mouth to say something, better be sure those who hear it can handle it. Something I'd learned when I was 3 but forgotten over the years.